Donald Clark Plan B

What is Plan B? Not Plan A!

Monday, January 27, 2014

MOOCs: Futurelearn 4 pluses & 4 minuses

Good to see Futurelearn launch with 26 partners and
add another platform and community to the growing MOOC landscape. Mike Sharples
gave a clear, and honest, report on progress so far, at BETT. “We can’t compete
on technology, so we must compete on the learning experience” said Mike and
outlined the platform’s pedagogical approach in detail.

PLUS 1: Social
constructivism squared

To be clear, I am NOT a social constructivist (see my 9 reasons why), then again
neither are most of the people I hear utter the phrase, as they have rarely
read any of the background theory and often parrot the two words as if just
uttering them is enough to confer deep meaning. It’s always astonishing to hear
people who largely ‘lecture’ for a living, express strong beliefs around social
constructivist pedagogy. However, Futurelearn has people like Mike who know
their stuff and do have complete belief in social constructivist theories of
learning. In their case, there is a genione effort at applying social constructivist theory to the learning process through discussion opportunties on every screen. There are also mentors who ‘moderate’ the
discussions, looking for hot stuff.

PLUS 2: Cohorts and
peer review

A second plus is the activity groups, segmented into say 20
learners, who fill up the bus to go on a group learning journey, then the next
group of learners wait on the next bus and so on. Peer review and peer
assessment are also there for assignments. Your assignment goes into a pool and
you get six pieces of feedback, while you also assess other assignments. This
is all good stuff and I look forward to seeing how effective this ‘social
layering’ has been in learning. The danger is that the 'social constructivist' approach trumps or overwhelms the quality of the content.

PLUS 3: New player
welcome

The doomsayers warned us of a world dominated by one massive
MOOC player. Far from being a market dominated by one platform, the MOOCosphere
has a range of platforms (see analysis here) on a range of technologies offering a range of
pedagogic models from adaptive and algorithmic through social constructivist to
direct instruction. The MOOC moaners are usually those who haven’t persevered
with a MOOC or, as I’ve found at two major conferences (WISE & Online
Educa), where the so-called ‘experts’ on the panels hadn’t taken a single MOOC.
It was like listening to schoolchildren struggle through a conversation because
they hadn’t done their homework, as they had little idea about the functionality
that supports different pedagogic models.

PLUS 4: Partners

One can quibble about the courses but some of the University
partners are excellent, I spoke in detail to Hugh Davis of the University of
Southampton, who was positive, level-headed and proceeding as one should in
such projects, with a sense of realism combined with genuine curiosity about experimenting looking for what works and doesn’t work in MOOCs. Fascinatingly, they’re recruiting student volunteers from the first MOOC to mentor on subsequent MOOCs. That’s the spirit
of innovation I like to see. The partners are the people who will make this work
and so the relationships between the OU private company and the partners are
important. Edinburgh, for example, has MOOCs on both Coursera and Futurelearn.
I hope the OU will be as generous as Edinburgh were on their data.

MINUS 1: Not ‘open’
on finances

Once again I asked where the funding had come from for the
first batch of MOOCs and once again Mike ducked the question. I asked Simon Nelson
(CEO) the same question and he declined to answer. This, in my opinion, is
unnecessary. We know that this has taken at least £2 million of start-up taxpayers’
money, so why not be honest and tell us? It’s our money. I know how much
Coursera, Udacity and EdX have raised. The fact that it’s priming a private
company is a bit worrying for many (not for me) but I think, given the
disastrous IT projects and forays into other markets (US) that the BBC and Open
University have tried, being ‘open’ would have been welcome. The trick now, as
they will almost certainly have chewed through their original cash with
expensive BBC contractors, is how they sustain the company? Mike gave a good account
of the possibilities but this is achievable but only if they have some savvy
business people in the camp.

MINUS 2: BBC

A great play is made of the ‘best of the UKs software talent
(from the BBC)’ being used on the project. This hyperbole may come back to haunt
them. The platform is nothing special. Indeed, in terms of functionality it is
quite basic with no real innovations. This is not a problem, because the
underlying pedagogy doesn’t need it. But the very idea that the BBC, who
recently had to abandon a £100 million Digital Media Initiative having achieved
nothing, makes this a rather laughable claim, as does the £75 million
squandered on BBC Jam, their last major online learning project, that collapsed
without a single piece of content being released. The BBC, far from being
added-value, is, I suspect an expensive and ultimately unnecessary resource.

MINUS 3: Infrequent
and odd courses

First thing to note is how infrequent the courses are.
There’s a substantial list of courses but many are not in this month and many
not until five or six months in the future. Two don’t have start dates at all –
this looks very odd - don’t they have production deadlines? Then there’s the
uninspiring nature of the catalogue. It looks more like a cobbled together evening list
than an inspiring set of courses. To be fair it’s the universities who chose
the courses, not the OU, so this is really a OU platform, not an OU offering.

MINUS 4: Design free
zone.

My last worry, and this is something summed up nicely by Graham
Brown-Martin, when he described Futurelearn as a ‘Skoda-level’ designed LMS. He
has a point, as the branding, screens and presentation are so deathly dull.
It’s like watching an unfinished, wire-frame demo. Again. To be fair, it’s
early days.Conclusion

I applaud Martin Bean and the OU for this initiative but do
think it would have been a much stronger offering without the opacity on the
finances and cost and baggage that the BBC bring. Nobody believes that the BBC
is a world-leading software house and it’s ljust palin odd that a part-timer, someone
from Radio, was chosen to lead the project. I adore the OU and see Futurelearn
as a genuinely moral attempt to be ‘Open’ in HE and encourage us all to take at least one of their courses.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

7 curious uses of SnapChat in learning

What is SnapChat?

A photo messaging service that allows you to send an image
that only lasts for 15 seconds on the other person’s device. 450 million are
sent a day (70% users are female)! It was invented to avoid the whole archiving of your every
communicated text and social media post. It has been phenomenally successful. Be
aware that, although the image is deleted, and it is difficult to screen grab
(the sender knows if you try) but someone can still take an image of the screen
using another phone.

1.Massive use. The main users are 13-23 – which
coincides almost exactly with post primary education group.

2.Selfie learning. Famous for encouraging ‘selfies’ it
can be used to snap anything in a learning task and encourages quick feedback
from tutors or peers.

3.Failure is fine. As it’s not saved and archived, it
is suited to tasks where failure is part of the learning process and as the
learner knows that the evidence will disappear, encourages evidence of failure.

4.Add text & drawings. You can add text (up to about 40
characters) and drawings (can also be used to scribble questions) to annotate
or make extra points on tasks.

5.Group questions & answers. Group feature means tutor can send
questions to groups and ask for quick answers as video (by student). Just write
a question on papaer, snap and send. I like the idea of a spoken video reply.
Note that this 15 second limit forces the student to think and then be
succinct. There may also be ways to use it for

authentication - is the student really who and wgere they say there they are?

6.Group spaced practice. Group feature means tutor can send
spaced practice reinforcement points to groups, again asking for quick replies
on video (up to 15 seconds) to make sure the student has thought about the
point.

7.SnapChat Stories. These stories allow users to record
a number of images and videos, up to 10 seconds, giving you longer, sequences
of Snaps. It remains for 24 hours, when you can view it repeatedly and is then deleted. This can be used for more
substantial learning tasks.

Conclusion

Ok, maybe this is a stretch but I’ve been trying it, and I
think it works. New, mass adopted consumer services should always be considered
for learning. This is not to say that they are always appropriate or will
always work but SnapChat is worth a try, if only because it’s quick, fun and
easy. The difficulty is in getting people to use something that’s used only for
fun, for learning. Or we can make learning, fun?

Monday, January 13, 2014

20 fantastic uses of YouTube in learning - rise of images

Over
the last few years we’ve seen the rise of the image over the word. This is a
significant cultural phenomenon and no doubt the traditionalists will beat
their spectacles against their breasts, crying over lost readers and libraries.
I’d rather celebrate the inventiveness and creativity of film and video.

YouTube as platform

At the
forefront of this rise in the creation and use of visual content is YouTube.
Note that YouTube is now a platform. This is important, as most people think
YouTube is just a huge bunch of videos. This fact, that it’s a platform, makes
it an interesting new ‘learning’ platform. It’s far more than a repository as
it has a number of techniques and tools that make it a real channel for
learning.

How to videos

YouTube
is the world’s largest repositories of 'how to' videos. It is used by ordinary
people when they want to know how to fix things or find out how things work. It
is used by professionals who need to do something they haven't done before. It
is increasingly being used by teachers, tutors, instructors and lecturers as a
method of recording their expertise, talks and so on. Even more exciting is the
fact that YouTube is increasingly becoming the default search engine for young
people and learners, who want visual answers to questions. If you want to work
out how to use a software feature, play a game, tie a neck-tie, expert views
whatever - YouTube usually has the answer.

So how
do you use YouTube for learning?

1. Reuse existing videos

Here’s
the good news. The scope of good videos on standards subjects such as maths and
science through to clips for use in English and every possible taught subject
is phenomenal. Before you think about creating content, you should check out
YouTube to see if good existing stuff is already there. Think Khan Academy and
the like, not just for maths. Note that you can embed your videos as full
screens.

2. Use your own

Upload
your own videos to a YouTube Channel (this is the Ufi Charitable Trust channel with learning technology videos) for use both by learners in other contexts
and of the channel itself. Creating a YouTube channel is simple and uploading
videos is straightforward. All you need is a Google Account and you’re off.
YouTube accepts almost any format, so that’s one worry out of the way. You can
also upload directly from mobile devices.

3. Social media alerts

Market
your course and videos through sharing and social media (useful alerts for
learners). Note that you can pay to get your videos marketed and choose your
campaign budget and whether you want to have in-display (on recommended column
of videos on the right hand side) or in-stream (ads on the front of other
videos).

4. Thumbnails (custom)

To put
a title frame on your graphic that will appear as your thumbnail, you need to
make sure your account is ‘verified’. This happens when you fully complete your
account creation. Youtube.com/verify Then go through the process and verify –
normally through a mobile text.

5. Private or public access

You
can upload videos that can only be seen by you and your selected group. You
simply choose between Unlisted (only people who have the hyperlink you send
them), private (they need an account and permission from you to view), public
(everyone).

There’s
an editing tool that allows you to edit an uploaded video, add audio, also can
pan, zoom, slow mo and many other effects. However, you’re likely to want to
use a proper video editor for quality product, such as Final Cut.

8. Picture enhancement tool

Fix
lighting so that your videos are brighter, darker, add colour saturation,
increase contrast, even turn it into black and white. There’s filters such as
pixelate and many others. You can blur faces to hide identity. You can even
stabilise the camera. If you don’t know what’s best, you can simply autofix.

Have a
featured video or playlist that pops up recommending another video for your
learners to move them forward in the course.

12. Watermarks

Add an
in-video watermark for channel branding which is automatically added to all of
your channels videos. This could be your institution, company or course brand.

13. External annotations

You
can put annotations to other YouTube videos or, if you have a verified account,
to any other external URL.

14. Playlists

Create
structured playlists on your YouTube Channel to structure your content for
learners. This can be used to modularize your course.

15. Questions

Did
you know that the TestTube has experimental YouTube features, such as adding
questions to videos? How cool is that.

16. Linear navigation

You
can put end-screens that allow the learner to go back or forward in a linear
set of videos.

17. Interactive video

Watch
this piano playing video gives you an idea of the sophistication of possible
branching within a video to different points within the same video.

18. Branched navigation

You
can branch to other videos to create more complex learning designs and
simulations. See this card trick example.

19. Analytics

With
all this talk of Big data, remember that YouTube spews out lots of interesting
data on views, subscribers, how long things have been watched, demographics,
click through on annotations and so on.

20. Partner programme

This
is the big prize. You can make money and get all sorts of extra services such
as live events and paid subscriptions.

ConclusionAll of this is interesting but what really matters is good
content. No amount of editing, effects, annotations and branching will turn
dirt into gold dust. For me this means looking at what really successful
YouTubers do. First they keep their videos short, second they entertain. If you
want to see a YouTube master at work, watch Vsauce, or Michael Stevens, who has
6.5 million subscribers. All of his videos are answers to questions. He’s
described how he got to this position on this TEDx video. As he says, “The
trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they only realise
they’re learning when it is too late. Start well, with a fun statement. Everything
is related in someway to something your viewers are interested in.”

Wednesday, January 01, 2014

7 most annoying ‘learning’ words of 2013

When Samuel Johnson wrote his
famous Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, he included many tongue-in-cheek
definitions of the newer terms of the day. Here’s a few tired terms I’ve culled
from 2013. I’ve tried to keep my definitions to less than 30 words.

Leadership

Tries to make out that
management is somehow heroic. It’s not. It’s just difficult. Usually taught by
enthusiastic people who wing it, having never led anyone, anywhere on anything.

Talent management

Like leadership, talent
management tries to turn something that is complex into the sale of expensive,
enterprise software. Makes HR people think they’re all Svengalis or Simon
Cowells.

Pedagogy

Means the ‘science of teaching’
but usually espoused as an excuse for not doing anything different. Often used
by pedagogues who like to lecture, and hand out the occasional essay.

Homework

Teachers are not foremen in a
factory, so why label something designed to open young minds as ‘work’? Get
your work done. Have you handed your work in? Turns learning into a chore.

C- words

Education and training is
obsessed with alliterative C-words; collaboration, communication, community….
Beware of slides where all words start with ‘C’, a sure sign they haven’t
thought it through.

Learnings
Learners learn but the act of learning is not the same as a lesson, especially when used in the plural, as 'learnings'. (Thanks to Margaret E Ward).

Life coaching

Get a life, not a coach!

Conclusion

The language of learning is so often pompous, misguided or
downright lazy. My last word is again from the great Samuel Johnson - "People have now-a-days got a strange opinion
that everything should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures
can do so much as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know
nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be
shewn. You may teach chemistry by lectures:-- You might teach the making of
shoes by lectures!"